Walt Disney World is making speedy progress on the Cars and Villains Lands in Magic Kingdom, with one of the defining features of Piston Peak National Park appearing to take shape: a waterway replacing the guest-facing side of the Rivers of America! After closing and demolishing that and Tom Sawyer Island, new aerial photos reveal the first contours of the new landscape. Here’s the latest, plus our commentary about what’s next.
Let’s start by quickly bringing you up to speed with what’s changed between summer and today. The Rivers of America, Tom Sawyer Island, and Liberty Square Riverboat closed back on July 7th. Walls went up along a portion of the waterfront in Liberty Square and Frontierland, and crews started by draining the former Rivers of America.
Following a couple months of that, demolition of Tom Sawyer Island occured in earnest from roughly October through December. By the start of the Christmas season, the structures were all gone, with only trees and the island itself remaining. With the land cleared, early 2026 has mostly been a matter of site prep and grading. But we’re also starting to see the eventual ‘natural’ contours of Piston Peak National Park taking shape. Let’s take a look!
With views from ground-level now mostly blocked, we take to the skies above Magic Kingdom for a glimpse over the construction walls. These overhead photos & video come courtesy of eye in the sky photos from friend-of-the-site bioreconstruct, the go-to source for aerial theme park photography…
Let’s start with a high-level establishing shot showing the bulk of the project site. Note that not all of this will be built on, at least not in the next ~5 years. A lot of this is for staging and then future developments.
This view is from outside Magic Kingdom, behind Haunted Mansion and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. This shows the large expanses of dirt where Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island once were, as well as the final laydown yard that we’ve been watching make progress as it plays catch-up to the other ones.
We’ve covered these laydown yards and drainage requirements extensively as part of the permitting process for this project over the course of the last year-plus. As a refresher, the permit for all of this was issued by the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) roughly one year ago, giving Imagineering until February 17, 2030 to redevelop the area.
The underlying SFWMD permit is massive in scale and scope, encompassing over 300 acres around Magic Kingdom and beyond. However, the actual project site only being about 14 acres. The laydown yards and total permit area are much bigger than the new lands, even if this still is the largest expansion in Magic Kingdom history.
There are several topics we touch on with each Magic Kingdom construction update, and we’ll revisit those again deeper in the post. But I want to switch things up by zeroing in on the new developments this time.
For starters, there’s what appears to be a new River of America! Even looking at the high level shot, you should see what looks like the unmistakable snaking shape of a smaller stream, roughly half the size (maybe one third?) of the previous guest-facing Rivers of America waterfront in Liberty Square and Frontierland.
As a refresher, here’s the (exaggerated) Fun Map of Piston Peak National Park:
One of my big hangups with this whole Cars project has been losing the waterfront. Paving paradise to put up a parking lot. Replacing the tranquil waters and a lush area that offered a lovely escape from the crowds and chaos of Magic Kingdom and a lovely, decompressing view…for almost the exact opposite of that.
As you can see from the Fun Map, there’s a rushing river that runs between Frontierland and Piston Peak National Park, along with a number of water features throughout the land. Notably, there’s also a waterfront promenade on the existing Frontierland side of the map.
What’s been unclear is the size of this water feature. Is it a rushing river or a small stream? Fun Maps are infamous for exaggerated features, and it would make sense that Walt Disney World would want to emphasize the water and that they are not, in fact, paving over paradise to put up a parking lot.
Accordingly, I’ve been anxiously the never river or stream bed to take shape to establish the actual size of the water feature. Construction itself doesn’t lie! I’m not 100% sure that’s what we see here, but in any case, let’s dive into the photos of what appears to be what I’m dubbing the new Creek of Piston Peak (rolls right off the tongue!):
Even though at aligns with the Fun Map and our expectations, what gives me a bit of pause about this being the future Creek of Piston Peak is that last photo. Zoom in a bit and you can what looks like vertical rebar in the middle–and a material amount of it.
There’s no good explanation for vertical rebar in the middle of a river. But we also can surmise that this is not the ride system or attraction path for the Cars Rally Racers attraction. It’s below-grade, a bit too sharply snaking and narrow, and way too close to the Frontierland promenade.
A more realistic possibility is that this could be laying the groundwork footers for the base of the mountain structure with ride show building covered with rockwork. Basically, this could be what delineates the Creek of Piston Peak water feature to the left and the mountain covering a show building to the right.
Honestly, I don’t know enough to make an educated assertion one way or another. It very much looks like a river to me, I know that much. But I also know that rivers typically do not have vertical rebar in them. One way or another, the Creek of Piston Peak is starting to take shape. It’s possibly just not the defined waterway that we previously expected. Time will tell as to what, exactly, is happening here.
Work continues on the final area of land behind “it’s a small world” and Haunted Mansion, north of Fantasyland. This is for Villains Land, which has a more nebulous layout and footprint than Piston Peak, which has clearly-defined boundaries (and a layout) between Haunted Mansion and Big Thunder.
Officially, we know less about Villains Land than Piston Peak. We don’t know the attractions it’ll feature, where they’ll be built, or just how far the land will extend in each direction. Based on the land clearing and the fact that there are already large show buildings here, we had assumed that another show building would be nestled behind Haunted Mansion and “it’s a small world.” That’s just the safe bet–and logical layout for the land.
However, the recent Filing Revealing Show Building Sizes & Locations of Cars & Villains Lands seems to suggest otherwise. I’m still not completely convinced that shows all of the buildings. Since the filing relates to wastewater and utilities, and the facilities are almost incidental, it’s possible that the buildings are only shown to the extent necessary or relevant.
Between this and the potential Creek of Piston Peak, it’s as if we’re slowing piecing together a mystery. And as with any good one, there are bound to be a few surprise plot twists, turns, and misdirection along the way. In other words, don’t view anything you see or read as the gospel. We’re bound to get some (potentially a lot) of this wrong along the way as more is slowly revealed. (Please, Disney, give us a scale model at D23!)
Above is a fresh look at the Haunted Mansion Mystery Project. Or rather, projects, plural.
As we can now see from the scrim around the mansion facade, one of these projects is simply routine maintenance to the building exterior. But we’re more interested in what’s happening behind the current queue and building entrance.
We previously speculated that this could be an extended queue (a la Disneyland) or that Disney is moving the entrance for crowd flow purposes. Oh course, the most fun explanation is a new dining experience, a la Haunted Mansion Parlor on DCL. Given that food and alcohol sales generate revenue and queues do not (directly), we’d never bet against a bar.
It’s also notable that the aforementioned filing has this as a structure, which makes a queue seem less likely. Again, time will tell.
As you can see, the project site(s) encroach on both Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Haunted Mansion.
Piston Peak will essentially be to the south of these attractions, where the main Tom Sawyer Island complex once stood, along with the guest-facing half of the Rivers of America. A large walkway between Haunted Mansion and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will form the northern boundary Piston Peak, providing a path between those two existing attractions and a connection to Villains Land.
With Big Thunder Mountain Railroad slated to reopen in Spring 2026, it’s expected that construction crews will start on the groundwork for this pathway soon. They’ll need to put up a second set of walls within the current walls around Big Thunder. In looking at the aerial photos, you can get a rough idea of where these will need to go before the ride can reopen.
The walkway definitely will not be completed (or even started) before Big Thunder reopens. It wouldn’t make sense to do so, as it’d block access to the Cars construction site. But prep-work should begin on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad side since it’ll be easier to accomplish that while the roller coaster is closed.
If you look closely at the photos above and below, the pavement around Big Thunder is still torn up, including the exit path. It’s tough to tell where the Piston Peak project site ends and BTMRR starts. That’ll need to change–and fast. Crews will need to do work on the exit area walkway before BTMRR can reopen. (And of course, construction walls will need to go up along the Piston Peak project site.)
Although it’s exciting to see the Creek of Piston Peak, or whatever that is, starting to take shape, there’s presumably still a lot of largely invisible work to be done. There’s still some clearing on the back half of the site, grading, and more.
In addition to that, crews will need to install infrastructure and utilities, and more before vertical construction can begin. Tropical Americas took about 10 months to go from land clearing to the beginnings of vertical construction.
Our best guess is that Piston Peak is still several months away from going vertical in a meaningful way (a few feet of rebar doesn’t quite count). Honestly, I’d be surprised and impressed if we see steel rising above the construction walls by Christmas 2026.
I’d love to be wrong and have this work kick into a higher gear, but these projects are always slow-going…until they’re not. The vertical stage is what goes fast. This happens time and time again, and yet, fans constantly question why things are going so slow…and then why projects have ‘sped up.’
I’ve mentioned this before, but we continue to get questions, so I’ll reiterate that this project is pretty unobtrusive to the guest experience thus far.
Obviously, the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island are gone, so that tranquil view and lovely ambiance are gone along with it. But at least at this point, that hasn’t been replaced with an ugly construction zone.
You can see the walls when first entering Liberty Square, but the way that the brown scrim is set back along the shortcut means it doesn’t stick out from the main thoroughfare of Frontierland.
It helps that there’s a good amount of foliage between Frontierland and the former Rivers of America or current project site.
The result when you’re walking through this section of the park, perhaps to visit future UNESCO World Heritage Site, Grizzly Hall, you don’t really notice all that much. Blend-in brown living up to its name.
The construction site is there, but it largely fades into the background. This is not a gigantic crater that commands guests’ attention or forces you through a maze of construction walls. It’s only prominent along the waterfront promenade, where blend-in-brown scrims replace what was once a lovely view.
In other words, this is absolutely nothing like the Giant EPCOT Dirt Pit. Now, progress grinds to a half or if this drags on for ~5 years or the end result is something akin to the ride version of CommuniCore Hall, you can expect my tune to change.
Finally, here’s an aerial video via bioreconstruct of the progress on the Cars and Villains Land project:
Aerial video of construction of Piston Peak National Park and Villains land in Magic Kingdom.
First concrete forms added for the ride route of Piston Peak! Winding near Big Thunder and the Frontierland walkway. pic.twitter.com/XWjc6ebhhF— bioreconstruct (@bioreconstruct) February 14, 2026
Ultimately, I have to admit that seeing the Creek of Piston Peak taking shape got me excited. It’s no secret that I think Walt Disney World made a mistake in removing the front half of the Rivers of America. I was fine losing the back half of Tom Sawyer Island, but felt–and still feel–that more of the project site should actually been Beyond Big Thunder.
But what’s done is done. There’s no turning back time, so at this point, I’m really curious to see how Imagineering pulls this off. If they can manage to make Piston Peak National Park feel like an extension of Frontierland. If they can add breathtaking new visual features and a stunning landscape, a rushing river, etc.
I still have my misgivings about this project, to be sure, but at this point, I’m cautiously pessimistic bordering on cautiously optimistic. I really want to see Imagineering pull this off, making lemonade out of lemons and proving the haters like myself wrong. Nothing would bring me greater joy than admitting that; being able to say “I told you so” is literally the worst possible outcome here.
My other hope is that Walt Disney World continues to allocate as many resources as possible towards the Beyond Big Thunder expansion. Get these projects moving as fast as possible, with cranes on site to commence vertical construction by Fall 2026. Minimize the guest impact and have Piston Peak open ASAP. As far away as it seems today, both Cars and Villains land opening before 2030 would be a huge win. Speaking of which, see our updated 5-Year Plan for Walt Disney World New Lands & Attractions, which covers anticipated opening timelines.
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Your Thoughts
Thoughts on the Creek of Piston Peak? Is that the actual riverbed, or the groundwork for the structure that’ll separate the show building and rockwork from the waterway? Thoughts on Haunted Mansion Parlor or anything else covered here? Excited or disappointed that the Piston Peak National Park is replacing Rivers of America? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback—even when you disagree with us—is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
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